Reichenbach Revelation: Bet You Never Saw This Coming
by Doris the Younger
Summary: After the Reichenbach Fall, John Watson braves the Diogenes Club one more time to confront Mycroft Holmes. But this time he has an amazing revelation for him...


12

Reichenbach Revelation: Bet You Never Saw This Coming

After the Reichenbach Fall, John Watson braves the Diogenes Club one more time to confront Mycroft Holmes. But this time he has an amazing revelation for him...

It was nine o'clock at the Diogenes Club. From behind their evening newspapers the regular crowd was directing peculiar looks at Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft couldn't find it in himself to care. Harbored in the depths of his favorite armchair, he was trying to understand what he was reading in the evening newspaper. He could read the words right enough, but five minutes later he couldn't recall the meaning of what he'd read.

This, he thought, must be what it was like to have an ordinary brain.

Giving up on the newspaper, he toyed idly with his glass of tonic and gin. By now very few of the front pages were plastered with the sordid accusations of 'fraud' or 'fake genius.' To most people his brother's death had been a nine-day's-wonder. To him it was a mistake that he would never allow himself to forget.

Something odd was transpiring behind him. It almost sounded like an altercation—the audible closing of a door, a peculiar series of thumps, and the rise and fall of male voices. He peered around the high chair back to see what was going on and discovered that the interloper barging into the North Clubroom was Dr. John H. Watson.

Sherlock's friend was turned out better this evening than he had been for days. Instead of a ratty jumper and those terrible khaki trousers, he was wearing a tweed suit and a starched white shirt, and he'd gotten a professional shave and haircut. Definitely to the good; Mycroft had been worrying about the way that John was letting himself go.

Two white-gloved attendants moved in to lay hands on the miscreant, but John elbowed one aside and shoved the other into a nearby wall. Mycroft's fellow club members gasped and hid behind their newspapers.

Definitely not to the good—especially since John was stalking directly toward him.

Just as Mycroft was standing up to retreat, John cornered him in his armchair, pulled out a packet of small white pasteboards, and flipped one up right in front of his face.

MYCROFT—WE'RE GOING TO TALK **NOW**.

Another quick flip.

IF YOU HAVE ME KICKED OUT I'LL START YELLING

Yet another.

THINGS THAT YOU DON'T WANT ANYONE TO HEAR.

Mycroft could only sigh. Stirring up another firestorm of gossip wouldn't benefit John and it certainly wouldn't do him any good. This problem had to be dealt with immediately, and in a situation like this, the most expedient solution was capitulation.

Waving aside a nervous pair of attendants, Mycroft rose to his feet and escorted his unexpected guest to the Stranger's Room.

As soon as they were both inside, John's abruptly-commandeered host closed the door and glanced behind the room's brocaded drapes. The Diogenes Club was frequently swept for bugging devices, of course, but it wouldn't do to ignore the low-tech alternatives.

Once satisfied that their privacy was assured, Mycroft ensconced himself warily in a yellow armchair. There were very few things that his deceased brother's flatmate might want to say to himand none of them would be pleasant.

John lowered himself into the black armchair opposite to Mycroft, set a nondescript kraft envelope onto the end table, and gathered himself up to speak. From the tense quiver in his jaw and the hard glitter in his eyes, Mycroft deduced that John's primary motivating emotion was not grief, but belligerence. Whatever he intended to say, he was deadly serious about it—and it was something that he'd chewing on for quite a while.

"So what do you want, John?"

Steepling his fingers in front of his waist, John replied in a tone of absolute conviction, "Sherlock's still alive. He faked his death."

Oh God. This was so much worse than he'd expected. He'd anticipated depression or rage—both of which were profusely documented in John's original case notes—but not full-blown self-delusion.

"No, oh no, John, I know how hard and…but you have to understand…it's not possible… No matter how hard we might wish it. I hate to say this, but perhaps it would help if you talked to your-"

"Now don't start twittering at me, Mycroft," John snapped back impatiently. "I know you think that I'm falling apart, but you have to understand, seeing men that I cared about die in front of my eyes used to be practically part of my job description."

He shoved his chair closer to Mycroft until they were practically knee-to-knee. "I don't need to talk to a therapist. I need to talk to the Iceman, the heartless bastard who calculates all the angles without feeling a scrap of emotion. If you can listen to me with an open mind for just three minutes, I'll prove to you that I'm right."

What a cruel dilemma. If he said 'no', John would either fly into a rage or direct that terrible scornful stare at him—the one he'd gotten at the end of their last meeting. If he said 'yes,' he would surely wind up tearing John Watson's last desperate hope apart.

Faced with an impossible choice, Mycroft made a quick and possibly ruinous decision. He would let John have his say. Three minutes in which his mind was open to the possibility that Sherlock might still be alive would be the best three minutes he'd had all week.

"All right, John. I can do that."

John gave him a suspicious frown, but then nodded and looked pensive. "You're partially right, I suppose. I did let myself fall apart for a while. It was selfishness, really. I was thinking about myself, trying to imagine what I was going to do without Sherlock around. But then I realised what I needed to do—track down the emergency crew that trolleyed Sherlock away from me and tear large strips off their worthless hides."

"They were just doing their jobs," Mycroft remonstrated softly.

"They were NOT doing their jobs! Those berks hauled him off without giving him CPR."

"Because he was dead." Sherlock's friend had asked for the Iceman and he would have him.

The expression on John's face was easy enough to recognise—it was the testiness of the experienced professional forced to cope with the incompetent amateur. "I'm perfectly aware that he had no heartbeat—I felt his wrist myself! That's the definition of 'dead', all right. It's also precisely when CPR is called for. At that moment Sherlock still had a chance. One chance in ten, one chance in a hundred, one chance in a thousand maybe—but he might still have survived if they'd kept his heart pumping the way they were supposed to."

The ex-army surgeon took a deep breath. "You can understand why I was so furious."

The air in the room seemed to ripple in front of Mycroft's eyes and for a moment he could barely manage to breathe. It was all that he could do to keep from flying into a rage himself. That emergency crew had trolleyed Sherlock away from his very last chance to live. He would help John track down those worthless gits himself—if need be, he would rip apart the NHS piece by piece to find them.

and then, unexpectedly shifting into a calmer gear, John cocked his head to one side and raised a finger to punctuate his next statement. "I'll admit it, I wanted their jobs. So I rampaged off to St. Bart's to lodge a sharp complaint. And lo and behold…. nobody at the hospital could tell me who those people were. I went through all the emergency room records, both penciled notes and online, but somehow or other it turned out that Sherlock's admittance files had been misplaced."

Mycroft's head went up sharply and he took a sudden breath that was almost a gasp. How could he possibly have missed that? It couldn't be a coincidence. As he stared blankly at nothing and tried to think, his eye was drawn to the face of the mahogany cabinet clock by the writing-desk.

John had been quite right. It had taken him less than three minutes.

Pulling out a paper from his envelope, John shoved it across the marble surface of the end table. "But I did find this. You're next of kin, so I'm sure you got an official copy."

Mycroft glowered down at the crinkled photocopy. "I specifically ordered that Sherlock's death certificate be sealed."

"It was sealed, but I knew the right people to ask," John explained. "I'm sure you noticed the signature on it."

Mycroft nodded in agreement. "Mary Margaret Hooper."

"And that didn't seem odd to you?" Once again, John's face had that 'these people are idiots' expression that Mycroft had gone to some effort to wean himself from. "Speaking as a physician, I can assure you that performing a friend's medical examination is a completely unprofessional thing to do."

"We both know that Molly cared about my brother—perhaps too much. I assumed that's why she did it..." As he heard himself speaking, Mycroft couldn't help but wince. Had he actually said the word 'assumed'?

"No, no, no." John was shaking his head in disbelief. "Neither you nor Sherlock really understand this 'caring' business, do you? Caring doesn't mean sticking your hands into a dead friend's thoracic cavity—it means doing whatever it takes to help your live friend."

When had John Watson turned into a detective? "Did you ask her about it?"

"No, and you can't either. Having Molly dragged off to one of your warehouses is the last thing that your brother would want."

This was turning into the grossest sort of wishful thinking. "You insist on assuming that he is still alive. As I told Sherlock a hundred times, deduction is not the same as proof!"

To his chagrin, the Iceman realised that his voice had risen almost to a shout. John held his tongue until the silence became pointed and then asked dryly, "So what would you consider to be proof? Digging up Sherlock's grave and checking to see who's buried in his coffin?"

Mycroft put his fingertips to his lips and mused, "An official exhumation would draw too much attention. Perhaps a discreet grave robbery…"

"You really are a piece of work, aren't you?" John snorted. "Don't you see that it all fits? When Sherlock was standing up there on the roof he told me straight out that it was a magic trick. I don't know how he managed it, but he was telling me the exact truth."

He wanted to believe that John was right, Mycroft admitted to himself—he wanted to believe with all his heart. But both belief and hearts were irrelevant to this situation. Could John's admittedly ingenious string of deductions stand up to rational analysis?

Well, who better to evaluate deductions than Mycroft Holmes? Painstakingly, he unpacked the circumstances of his brother's death: a psychotic murderer's outrageous crimes, a scandal sheet's media circus, international killers sifting into Baker Street, Sherlock's highly public leap from the roof of St. Bart's—and then the curious blanks in the official record. In the end, it all came down to logic. 'Facts' were only as trustworthy as the people who reported them—and everybody lied.

And that being so…

It wasn't a matter of sentiment—the question was, which theory did he distrust the least?

He had to conclude that John's deductions made more sense than any other explanation of Sherlock's death he'd been given. For the very first time since that terrible day he'd been offered a realistic theory about Sherlock's actions—a theory that did not utterly contradict everything that Mycroft knew to be true about his brother.

As Sherlock always liked to say, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth."

"Amazingly enough, John, I do believe you." Mycroft knew that his conclusions were based on cold, hard facts, but he couldn't keep his voice from quavering just a little. "The next question is, why did Sherlock think he needed to fake his death?"

"Are you absolutely sure that Jim Moriarty is dead?" John asked from out of the blue.

Now that brought back an unpleasant series of events. Certainly necessary, but unpleasant nonetheless. "Quite, quite sure. I had to be positive that he hadn't swallowed a thumb drive with the computer key code."

"Yeah, that would do it, all right," John agreed without blinking an eye. "How did he die, anyway?"

"I managed to get that report sealed too, but there was no doubt about what happened. Moriarty shot himself."

"Moriarty shot **himself**?" When Mycroft nodded, John burst out, appalled, "God, he really was a sick nutter, wasn't he? Did he shoot himself before or after Sherlock jumped?"

"According to the blood splatter pattern, before." In response to the query in John's eyes, Mycroft explained, "That's what DI Lestrade told me. He really is a good detective, you know."

"Yeah…yeah, I suppose he is," John grudgingly admitted. "So if Moriarty was already dead, what possible reason could Sherlock have had to pull his disappearing act?"

Mycroft pondered the matter. "It wasn't the computer key code. It's important to national security, but it wasn't important to him. It's conceivable that he wanted to keep Moriarty's assassins from carrying out any last orders that he might have left them. But I think it most likely that Sherlock has set himself the task of destroying what remains of Moriarty's criminal network."

"And he wants to do it all by himself," John grumbled. "'Alone is what protects me', that's what the arse said to me that day."

"It was his way, John," Mycroft sighed. "You could only change him so much."

"He should have let me in on it. You can't play a lone hand on something like this," John said disgustedly. "I suppose he might have had some mad notion that he needed to protect me, but he was acting like a two-year-old. 'I do it myself!'—just like a toddler!"

"You're only realising that now?" Mycroft asked with a shrug. It was a rhetorical question—John couldn't possibly have missed it. "Sherlock never wanted to accept help if it came with advice. Not from me, obviously. Not from Lestrade, either. He tried for years to straighten Sherlock out and he got no thanks for it."

Not even from Mummy, and it nearly broke her heart, Mycroft opened his mouth to say—but stopped himself in the nick of time.

"Right. Of course, right." John rolled his eyes in exasperation, as they all did eventually. "Well, Mycroft, I'm sure you're hatching up a scheme to help Sherlock, but this time you needn't bother. I'm going to find out where Sherlock is heading, get there first, and take care of what's left of Moriarty's network myself."

"What?!" Mycroft had indeed started to sche—to plan, and his chain of thought had distracted him somewhat.

Captain John Watson, late of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, suddenly seemed every inch a dangerous man. "You asked me to watch over him and that's exactly what I intend to do. I certainly hope that you're not thinking 'oh poor John, however could he cope with a murderous organisation of foreign gunmen, because when you're talking to an ex-soldier like me, the question is absurd."

Absurd? It was John's plan that was absurd. John Watson was capable enough in a fight, but this was a job for a trained secret agent. Mycroft could name half a dozen government operatives right off the cuff that were much better skilled….

And then, once again, Mycroft automatically calculated all the angles—who, what, where, why, and how do they work together—and the results turned his entire plan turned upside-down. No, he couldn't tap MI6 for something like this. None of Her Majesty's agents would consider Sherlock's life to be a top priority. Only John would do that.

After swiftly considering the tactical situation, the Iceman realised that what he had to do next was quite clear. John Watson—stubborn, skeptical, overly-ethical John—was the only man that he dared to send on this mission. His lack of covert ops skills would have to be worked around somehow.

Derailing what would have most certainly been an epic rant, Mycroft answered calmly, "Very well, John."

"What?!" John asked, flabbergasted. "Did you actually agree with me? That's amazing!"

Mycroft gave him a self-deprecating smirk. "We're both aware that I don't have a sterling success record at keeping grown men from doing what they want to do. But I presume, since you're telling me all this, that you want my assistance with the 'finding out' and the 'getting there first' parts."

"Ummm…. that would be nice." John shifted uncomfortably in his chair, almost as if he was surprised by the offer. "It does occur to me that someone with apparently infinite resources and a flexible sense of legality would be a good man to have in my corner."

"There are no two ways about it! You cannot believe that you'd get very far without my help..." Mycroft was drawing himself up for one of his usual browbeatings when he suddenly realised—this wasn't another useless argle-bargle with his brother. It was an simple but important procedural negotiation and he should treat it as such. Accepting that fact made the situation much easier to deal with.

Rising deliberately to his feet, he moved to the antique—but well-stocked—liquor cabinet on the opposite side of the Stranger's Room. "It's been quite a day, John. I believe that I could use a drink. How about you?"

John's answer was pleasant, but noncommittal. "Whatever you're having, Mycroft."

What he would be having, of course, would be whatever he knew that his negotiation partner preferred. In John's case that was Scotch whisky, which Mycroft certainly liked better than the Greek ambassador's favorite retsina. Picking up two glasses and an eighteen-year-old bottle of Dewar's, he set them on the marble end table and filled both glasses halfway. He left the bottle next to John's elbow so that John could easily top off his glass if he liked.

Mycroft wouldn't top his glass off, though.

By the time he sat down again, whisky in hand, he'd worked out a basic to-do list. "I'll have to check with my Interpol contacts to find out what they know about Moriarty's network, but there are certain supplies that you'll need no matter what."

"Such as?" John had picked up his half-full whisky glass but wasn't drinking from it.

Mycroft ticked off the obvious necessities on his fingers. "You'll need money—both in cash and credit cards. Identification papers under multiple names. Weapons that can be worn and used discreetly. Some 'special equipment' that I can obtain from MI6."

"Do I get an exploding pen?" John enquired with barely-repressed mirth. "Oh, please tell me that I get an exploding pen."

Mycroft waved off the request. "You don't want an exploding pen. Everyone expects things like that nowadays."

John shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know what you expect of me, Mycroft, but I'm no super-spy. I was trained as a doctor and a soldier and that's what you're stuck with."

"You're Sherlock's friend. I expect you to be highly motivated to bring him back alive. That's what matters the most to me." Mycroft was not comfortable about revealing so much, but at this point, a certain element of candour was desireable to grease the wheels.

After a moment of startlement, John nodded with a look of understanding.

Yes, just the reaction he'd expected.

Mycroft paused to emphasise the significance of what he was about to promise. "I should be able to make the arrangements within the week. It will be—my top priority."

Impressed in spite of himself, John demanded, "So what's the catch?"

Alas, John knew him far too well. "The catch? Whatever do you mean?"

"There's always a second agenda with you. What is it this time?"

What he wanted was control of the operation, but there was no chance that he'd be given that. The question was, how much decision-making power could he wangle out of John?

"First off, I want to be kept in the loop." As John started to bristle, Mycroft pointed out, "Be reasonable—how else am I supposed to send you the information you'll need, or tell you who you should contact in a particular situation?"

Perhaps a harmless pleasantry would be apropos. "You can call me. On my phone."

"All right, I suppose I'm willing to call you, but don't imagine for a moment that I'll let you micromanage me," John grumbled, then pulled out his silver Nokia to examine it. "I'll probably need a new roaming plan."

John still wasn't taking this seriously enough, Mycroft thought with irritation. "What you'll need is a state-of-the-art encrypted smartphone, and I'll arrange for one immediately. If you find out anything about Moriarty's key code, remember that the whole matter is top secret."

John gave him an unsurprised glare. "So you're still after the computer key code."

"As I told you, this is a matter of national security." Before John could protest, Mycroft went on, "You must understand, John, every other player in this game will be concentrating on Moriarty's key code, so it's bound to come up in your investigations."

The key code **was** a national security issue, so Mycroft baited a hook on the odd chance that John would snap at it. "Sherlock is likely to be dragged into the key code business too, so if you want to find my brother, I suggest that you pursue every opportunity."

John didn't look like he was going to bite at the hook, but he didn't object to the suggestion, either. That, Mycroft knew, was unlikely to be true for his next one.

"Finally, I want you to let someone else accompany you on this mission. As you put it yourself, you can't play a lone hand on something like this."

"And who exactly did you have in mind?" John asked suspiciously. "I don't want anyone from your Blackberry Brigade tagging along with me."

Mycroft hesitated a split-second before forging onward. "It would greatly facilitate your investigations if you were working with someone with British police credentials."

John eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "You mean Lestrade."

"He really is a good detective," Mycroft answered in self-defense. At one time John had liked Lestrade well enough, but they had a history now. He knew how that went.

He'd expected anger, but what he actually received from John was flat-out incredulity. "How the hell do you get Lestrade to run your errands like this? I can't believe that he'd do it for money—what is it, blackmail?"

He was briefly saddened that John would think he might blackmail one of Sherlock's closest associates. Blackmail was such an untrustworthy weapon; it could easily so blow up in its user's face. He employed it only as a last resort. "Oh heavens, no. In this case, I'm confident that his own sense of guilt will be sufficient."

John flinched noticeably at this casual analysis. "You've just managed to make me feel sorry for Gregory Lestrade."

"You should be," Mycroft murmured. "He was only doing his job."

At that point John seemed to go through a series of Watsonian deductions, the expressions on his face shifting as he turned up one rock after another and examined what lay underneath. Finally the doctor shook his head in disbelief.

"I can't understand why you'd even consider Lestrade. Hello? His job is to enforce the law. We're talking about a covert op that's bound to break the law in several different countries. Why on earth would a police officer be willing to get involved with something like this?"

"I believe that he'd do it for Sherlock," Mycroft said bluntly. After laying his cards on the table, he allowed them to lie there in silence. John had seen how hard Lestrade had worked to give Sherlock an 'in' to the criminal investigations he craved—even though Lestrade's subordinates, one and all, despised working with the 'amateur.' What did John think that meant?

John opened his mouth, closed it, and then thought long and hard. Eventually he nodded. "I suppose you're right. In spite of everything that happened, Greg Lestrade really does care about Sherlock."

Caring—that had always been the ultimate touchstone for John Watson. His 'key code', as it were. Mycroft lowered his gaze and carefully studied his fingernails. "Surely you know that I care about Sherlock too."

Although he really wasn't sure that John did.

"Of course I do!" John answered, startling Mycroft considerably. "Yes, I've watched the two of you go at each other hammer and tongs—but I understand how siblings who love each other can still drive each other crazy. And yes, you let Moriarty use you to discredit Sherlock—but Moriarty was bloody good at playing people—including you. I was absolutely infuriated by that whole horrible media circus—but I seriously doubt that any of it bothered Sherlock very much. He's too much of an egotist."

"That last statement at least is true," Mycroft muttered.

John gave him a half-smile. "In your own way I'm sure you're sorry about what happened. But the next time you're sorry, you need to tell him yourself."

Mycroft had no idea how to respond to that. 'The next time'—those were the loveliest three words he'd ever heard.

Having said his piece, John rose painfully to his feet. "Well, I suppose I ought to be going. I've got a lot of things to get started on and I'm sure that you do too. When you break the news to Lestrade, be sure to call me and tell me what he says."

Poor John, Mycroft thought—he looked so weary and so alone. He'd confronted the ogre in his lair and bested him in single combat—but he was so knackered now that he could barely stand up. He'd tucked his trembling hands out of sight in his pockets and he was favouring his 'lame' leg more than a little.

Mycroft Holmes understood how this could be. Constant pressure, crushing stress, even mortal peril—all of these could be endured. But hopelessness sapped you utterly.

After a moment of uncertainty, he ventured, "You don't have go right away, John. Why don't you stay for dinner? I can assure you that the prime rib here is exemplary."

John shrugged. "I already agreed to do what you wanted. You don't need to waste any more of your time arguing me into it."

Oddly enough, he'd actually meant the offer to be kind. The Holmes family had never possessed so many friends that he could afford to let even one drop in his tracks from exhaustion.

Moreover, dinner with John would hardly be a waste of time. Sharing a meal with an agreeable companion would be a pleasant change from the endless jousting with tablemates that was standard at official dinners. In any event, he certainly had no desire to spend the night in the clubroom staring at his newspaper. He had even less desire to watch the walls closing in on him at home.

"This is the Diogenes Club, John. Outside of the Stranger's Room, arguments are strictly prohibited."

Mycroft could think of any number of reasons why John might turn him down; he was already readying counter-arguments for them. But what John actually said was, "All right, Mycroft. If I learned one thing from the British Army, it was never to turn down food."

Was it actually going to be as easy as that? If he'd invited John to dinner at the outset instead of having him brought to the warehouse, heaven knows how things would have gone. At the time, of course, he hadn't thought that John would last out the week as Sherlock's flatmate. Oh well, live and learn.

As soon as they exited the Stranger's Room, white-gloved figures at the end of the corridor quickly flitted away and out of sight. John must have been put on the 'Special Guests List' alongside of Sherlock. No one but Mycroft was in earshot when John said, "You know, you were wrong about one thing. I didn't come to you because I wanted your help to track down Sherlock—or guns, or money, or fake IDs, or exploding pens."

John's expression was most peculiar—he seemed to be teetering between desperation and hilarity. It was worth risking blackball to speak out loud and ask, "Why, then?"

"I figured that if anyone could tell me whether my theory about Sherlock was completely mad, it would be you."

Mycroft stared very hard at John's face but could see no lie in it. "You can't have been just having me on. Surely you believed what you were saying to me."

"It all seemed to make sense, but—" John raised his hands in helpless confusion. "I have an ordinary mind, Mycroft. How could I trust my own logic when it went against what I'd seen with my own eyes? I couldn't help but wonder whether it was just wishful thinking."

By the skin of their teeth, Mycroft told himself grimly. They'd achieved this remarkable and essential alliance only by the very skin of their teeth.

He stood stock-still as he calculated out, once again, what could have happened.

If he'd imagined for one instant that John wasn't certain of what he was saying, he would have chalked it all up to grief-stricken self-delusion.

If he'd discounted John's reasoning, he wouldn't have bothered to evaluate his chain of deductions.

If he hadn't ultimately accepted those deductions, his brother would have been left to wander the world with no backup, and he would have been left—as he was.

But he couldn't allow this particular nightmare to prey on him. He had more than enough things to worry about without squandering his time thinking about terrible events that hadn't actually happened.

"Perhaps your theory was a bit mad, John," Mycroft finally responded. "This is Sherlock that we're talking about, after all. But I'm still convinced that you're right."

The ghost of a smile flickered over John's face. "You just told me that you think I'm right. Wait until I tell Sherlock what you said!"

One more crisis surmounted, Mycroft shook off a fleeting wisp of horror and thankfully resumed his usual air of imperturbability. "You needn't bother. He'll never believe you."

THE END


End file.
